Leaving school for an apprentiship

[WkdSM]

My DSS is 17, lives with him mum, and is doing 4 subjects at AS level.
He has told us that he wants to leave college and do an apprentiship in Business Management / Admnistration as he dislikes college, but that his mother has told him she will throw him out if he leaves school.
He has just had his results from his first set of exams - 3 U's and a D.

We don't think he is working that hard, as he does not want to be there, but am not sure about the apprentiship thing. Has anyone had any experience of them?

Also - does anyone know what the minimum marks are he needs to get to stay on and complete his A levels?

Has he actually started applying for MAs?

He can't just magically get an apprenticeship. He will have to apply for it like any other job and apply to a training provider and pass assessment tests to get in. So do not let him leave college on the off chance that he might get an apprenticeship - the good ones are very competitive!

Also - he needs to be aware that he will get paid a very low wage for the first few years. Mum will lose CB and and CTC, so financially, he may not gain at all.

He will initially at least be studying for an NVQ2 which if he has 5A-C GCSEs is the same level as qualifications he already has. Then may go onto level 3 - equivalent to A Levels, although how long it will be considered equivalent is debatable.

However, if he really wants to do business admin and is motivated then he should do it. Could some compromise be reached - he puts in more effort to complete his AS Levels, but in the mean time if he succeeds in getting an apprenticeship then he can leave? I am quite concerned that alot of kids drop out of college assuming they will get an apprenticeship but mostly they just end up back at college the following Sept as they couldn't get a place.

My only experience of apprencticeships are the ones the company I work for offer - the first year they are at college full time, then block release after that, but in work the rest of the time. They all seem to stay on, and former apprentices have done really well in the company.

Seems to be a great scheme there, but not sure about a business one. However, seems like AS isn't working out for him at all, so would be worth looking round to see if he can find a place

If he has taken exams already then presumably they are modular? Will he be resitting the units? If his marks are that low it might be worth meeting with his teachers to find out why.

A college is unlikely to kick him out after AS levels unless he is really making no effort and causing hassle as students=money. However they might expect him to pick different AS levels/courses rather than progress onto A2s.

Almost all the apprenticeships I am aware of are business admin not management. If he wants to go into management he is much better of staying to complete A Levels then applying to one of the training programmes in the big stores eg John Lewis who take on lots of college leavers and train them. If he hasn't already he should really see the careers adviser in college who will tell him all this anyway.

This is all just based on my experience of working with teenagers, mostly who had dropped out of college. Sorry if its a bit incoherent - not a good day!

Thanks for the info.
It is rather a complicated situation - his mum and DH do not really talk at all (long story but believe me he has tried and tried). They live a 7 hour round trip away so it is not that easy to talk to the teachers (I think we would need his OK to do this anyway).
He tends to live in a bit of a fantasy world and has visions of himself running some sort of multi trillion business within 2 weeks of leaving school.
He lived with us for 3 years and we found he was incredibly difficult to motivate - he would literally rather sit pretending to do homework than actually do it. So I understand why college is not really working out - you do need a degree of self discipline and motivation.
Part of me thinks actually being in a work enviroment would be good for him - but our fear is that he will deliberately plough the exams so he has to leave. Him mum already forced elder son to leave house when maintenance payments stopped.

It sounds as if the right apprentiship is valuable, but difficult to find. Mind you, since Christmas he has wanted to join the army, go to university, start his own business, and now do an apprentiship.

apprenticeships ar really valued by employers as often the qualilfication has been written by them and worth their weight in gold. It can be difficult to get one but not if you have good support and know where to look. Go on websites of big national companies such as BT, Virgin, Jaguar, M&S, Tesco's, etc etc etc, you might not initially think of them but they all use office staff. Follow the links of working for us, careers, jobs etc. If he get's in with a national company then he is more likely to be able to continue with this upto a NVQ Level 4 qualification which is equivalent to a degree but without the debt.

Get him to register on www.apprenticeships.org.uk. If you are in England then he needs to speak to his Connexions Adviser in school, Scotland, wales, NI it's careers adviser. He can arrange this through the careers teacher. If not then google connexions and whatever county you live in and you should get a phone number. He will need to get his CV together

vj32 - they are not called MA's any more and haven't been for at least 2-3 yrs.

Tinkgirl - thanks for the advice - we will pass it on to him, but tbh I think it is up to him to ring round, look up websites etc. There is a line between supporting kids and doing everything for them. If he really wants to do this, then he will put some effort into it.
Whole nother thread but I do have a bit of an issue with parents doing everything for the kids (doing their CV's, finding job adverts, filling in apps.) How are the kids meant to learn how to do things - or even the importance of doing things for themselves.